An exposure-response database for detailed toxicity data.

Risk assessment for human health effects often depends on evaluation of toxicological literature from a variety of sources. Risk assessors have limited resources for obtaining raw data, performing follow-on analyses or initiating new studies. These constraints must be balanced against a need to improve scientific credibility through improved statistical and analytical methods that optimize the use of available information. Computerized databases are used in toxicological risk assessment both for storing data and performing predictive analyses. Many systems provide primarily either bibliographic information or summary factual data from toxicological studies; few provide adequate information to allow application of dose-response models. The Exposure-Response database (ERDB) described here fills this gap by allowing entry of sufficiently detailed information on experimental design and results for each study, while limiting data entry to the most relevant. ERDB was designed to contain information from the open literature to support dose-response assessment and allow a high level of automation in performance of various types of dose-response analyses. Specifically, ERDB supports emerging analytical approaches for dose-response assessment, while accommodating the diverse nature of published literature. Exposure and response data are accessible in a relational multi-table design, with closely controlled standard fields for recording values and free-text fields to describe unique aspects of the study. Additional comparative analyses are made possible through summary tables and graphic representations of the data contained within ERDB.